


the thing with feathers, apparently

by rolameny



Series: Destiny fics [8]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 05:54:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19784611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rolameny/pseuds/rolameny
Summary: Eris is strange. She doesn't move at all until she moves all at once, in sharp motions, like an insect. Suraya still hasn't seen her eyes and isn't sure she wants to. She's at least two hundred years old, a Guardian, and wears her clothes like they're hazmat gear. Suraya's spent a year in Tower meetings pushing back against her exact style of cryptic pronouncement.Still, though.





	the thing with feathers, apparently

**Author's Note:**

> Gun game? [Gun gay.](https://twitter.com/AurumEffects/status/1149727958791180290)
> 
> Those probably aren't peregrine feathers on that gun, but listen: _they could be._

"It's dark there, in the craters of the moon," the woman says, her voice harsh. Something on her forehead glows with a steady green light under her hood. "Luna will abide no Light under her skin."

Suraya frowns at her from her perch on a crate. Behind her Louis yanks out a down feather with a violent motion. Bit of a non-sequitur — she'd just asked about the charms.

Eris adjusts a knot, busy wrapping the stock of her hand cannon. "So I bring Light and my own luck with me."

Her gun and gloves clatter with beads. Mostly brown, some blue with staring white eyes, and some square and bronze, stamped with an unfamiliar mark. Suraya keeps expecting to see a hamsa somewhere in there.

"The beads are rosewood and Ionian yew. All living things make their own Light — every blade of grass, every person, every bird." Eris' eyes, the visible ones, shift to Louis.

Suraya opens her hand and the next loose feather he pulls out falls into it: one of the bigger coverts. She twirls it by its shaft.

"Every feather?"

"If given as a gift," says Eris, quiet. "Light can't be stolen, not if it's to be used well."

The feather gleams in the afternoon light, striped in brown and copper, perfectly ordinary to Suraya's eye. Louis's shed plenty just like it since he fledged and the only attention she ever gives them is to lecture him for the mess while she looks for a compost bin.

Suraya runs a nail along its vane. The barbs spring back behind it, eager to get back into place.

On impulse she tilts the feather out to Eris, sitting on her own crate stock-still and angular. The Traveler is huge behind her gawky figure, a frame, a halo, a moon.

"I think if I'm cleaning up after him, I get to say Louis' garbage feathers are mine to give. So, hey, if you think it'd help up there…"

It's a long, long moment before Eris lifts her own hand — long enough Suraya begins to lower her own. 

Eris catches Suraya's hand in a graceless yank.

Her hand is cold and pale, her nails ragged-edged. Eris' fingers are thin against Suraya's own.

Suraya's been staring. She looks away, pulling her gaze up to where it should be with an effort.

Eris is smiling. The expression looks odd on her face. Like it's not used to being there. 

She's strange. She doesn't move at all until she moves all at once, in sharp motions, like an insect. Suraya still hasn't seen her eyes and isn't sure she wants to. She's at least two hundred years old, a Guardian, and wears her clothes like they're hazmat gear. Suraya's spent a year in Tower meetings pushing back against her exact style of cryptic pronouncement, and even longer arguing with Devrim about the arrogance that tends to go along with it.

Still, though.

Suraya can't help but smile back.

"Thank you," Eris says. Her lips curve, catching the late summer sun. 

Lightheaded, Suraya says, "Plenty more where that came from! Uh, maybe I should wash that first, though. Louis is kind of disgusting. Like, even for a bird of prey."

Eris' laugh is rough. She sounds like a crow, if Suraya's going to be honest.

And if Suraya is going to be honest, she likes it anyway.


End file.
